


Maggots

by UnoriginalAtBest



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Anxiety, Body Dysmorphia, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, Body Image, Brainwashing, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Female Homosexuality, Homophobia, Homosexuality, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Recovery, Religion, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 22:44:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11427786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnoriginalAtBest/pseuds/UnoriginalAtBest
Summary: I never thought that someone so close to me would hurt me so badly.





	Maggots

**Author's Note:**

> This story is really personal to me///

"Why do you always blame everyone else for your mistakes?" they tell me with a spiteful passion. "Why can't you ever accept that you did something wrong? Stop pointing fingers at everyone else." Yet they point their fingers at me. They point their crooked little extremities in my direction without any hesitation. They do not think they are wrong. They do not think twice. All they know is that I am the culprit. I am the one to blame.

But how much they do not know puts their argument to shame.

Because it was not my fault. It truly was not. I did not think so before, but now I have realized...I have begun to understand that I cannot be put to death for another's sins.

I did not lie about the evil human that took it upon themselves to sell false information about my friends. They were the one who lied, yet I am being put in jail for accusations backed by ignorance. They spoke putrid sentences into the ears of me and my loved ones. They told stories of love; stories that included someone dear to me leaving their lover behind, only to fall into the warm embrace of the liar's arms. They mentioned tales of how my own best friend was slowly falling for them too. Of how she would dance with them in the moonlight and stay at their home for the night to commit untold sins.

They were the one that lied, and then they accused me of blasphemy when I tried to uncover their true identity. But their story is only one in many.

There is someone much more important in my life that fits into this puzzle. Someone who was created with the purpose of making me feel at home. Someone made to take care of me, yet she didn't.

She has done this too. She has pressed me down into the depths of despair. She has blamed me for the things in life that destroy me.

I once told her that I did not believe in the divine, and she could not stand on her own two legs for the few moments that followed. She grew upset, and bared her fangs in my direction for the first time, but this was only the beginning.

One full moon later I came to her with shame and tears in my eyes. I arrived with a confession on the tip of my tongue, yet I could not bring myself to speak it aloud. She knew, though. Without me even saying it, she knew. She knew that the desires I held in my heart were not ones that fell under God's principals. She called me a heathen, and yelled to the whole world that I deserved her lashings. I was not allowed to fall in love after that.

This was the first time I can recall her doing such a thing, so I believed her words then. I believed that it was my own fault for not biding by God's rules. I was put to blame for yet another wrongful crime.

The next incident was on a night colder than the others.

I was beginning to feel the starting affects of corrupted mentality around this time. My brain was slowly being eaten away by maggots dressed in layers of false identity. They crept into my skull and started to feed on the surface of my mind. It was only the beginning. It was only the beginning.

I was frightened by my own mind. I could not quite grasp what was happening yet, but I knew something was there. I knew I needed help. Comfort. Protection. Safety. Safety.

So I ran to my corrupter. The need for validation was deep in my throat, wailing to be let out, but I kept it under control. I asked her a simple question. One that I thought did not give too much away, but one that I would later realize did give too much away.

When I spoke I remember seeing the fangs of the monster in her eyes curl up into a sinister smirk.

"Am I fat?"

"No, but-," and that "but" was what got me.From then on I was no longer allowed to wear clothing that revealed too much skin, nor was I allowed to put on clothes that hugged me tightly, because the monster didn't see fit. She never told me not to. However, if I were to do so, then the monster would peek through her eyelids with a scowl of disapproval. She did not have to tell me that she thought I was too much. The monster did that for her.

After that I got worse. I began a very steady downhill slope into the murky waters covering hell. Down, down, down I went until the light from above was nothing but a pitch black void. 

So I went back to her for a third time a few seasons later. 

The maggots that once thrived off of the surface of my mind were now digging deeper and deeper into my skull. They ate away at everything that made me up, and I broke down into a shriveled shell. They were as deep into my brain as I was in the sloshy void. We were not getting back to the surface any time soon.

That is why I called out to her. That is why I asked for help, because there was nothing else around me to help. I was so far gone that I felt my own best friends were too lost in another endeavor to help dig me out. I got lucky, though. I got lucky, because I almost downed the labelled bottle. But I didn't. I didn't swallow them. I didn't. Not yet.

But she did not know about that. She did not know how close I was to throwing away my soul. I could not let her know too much, because I was beginning to learn what she really was, and how the monster devouring her own mind puppeteered its doll. I could not give it too much ammo, but I was desperate, and I was hopeful.

I spoke to her in a quiet voice that night. I was reserved and vulnerable, and I thought that maybe it could get to her. That maybe the voice of her own would cut through the gloom, but it did not, and I was only torn apart more.

I told her about the maggots with a pained expression. I spoke of how I no longer wanted to be a part of this planet, and how the void of nothingness after death was much more welcoming than trying to survive. I sobbed into her shoulder. I allowed her to cradle my body and wear a mask of sympathy, because I did not have anyone else to hold me at the time. I did not have anyone else. I did not.

And just as hope was building; just as I was beginning to think that maybe she had come through, the monster spoke with poison on its tongue.

"Your fault." it said, and my entire being crumbled once more.

My fault. The maggots that made a home in my brain were my fault, all because I refused pray at night. All because I did not follow God's rules. That is what the monster told me.

I believed it once again.

And I got worse once again.

I fell so hard that I no longer held in my frustration. I found a way to get it out. I found a way to release it, and that was by marring my outer shell.

I destroyed my physicality. I used whatever I could to do so, and this kept me from ending it all. It kept me alive just a little while longer, because I was so far down into the depths of hell, and the maggots were so deep in my skull that I was nothing more than a few scribbled lines. I walked through life as a husk. There was nothing inside but this overwhelming need to die. I was a living embodiment of self hatred. She taught me to do that.

She taught me to blame myself, and so I did. For everything. Everything. It was all my fault. My heart was broken because I was not good enough. Nobody stood by my side since I was just too much to handle. I was never pretty enough due to my weight. I was never a priority. I was never someone's first choice, because they all found someone better to tend to. I simply was not good enough.

And one day she found out about it all.

Purple and blue painted my arms. She did not use me as a canvas. I did. And she saw the art that I created on my very own skin. The monster saw it too. The monster liked it. The monster made me ashamed of it.

"You can't wear short sleeves in front of anyone else until they heal, because people will think I did that to you."

I was punished for what the maggots made me do. I was punished for the seeds she planted in my skull. She stared at my scars. She made me stand half naked to check my body. That was the most caring thing she did, but when you realize that I hated my physical being; that other humans seeing me unclothed terrified me, and that she was the one who made me feel such a way, you see that she did not have a right to do so. Stripping me down was not a right that my abuser should be able to have. I should not have to open myself up to the monster that destroyed me. If it really cared, then it would not have done such things from the beginning.

It would not have begun to break me down those two years ago if it really wanted to care for me.

Because of this monster, this horrible, horrible creature, I have begun to despise my very being. I do not believe I deserve to be loved. I do not believe that basic human rights apply to me. I have culminated self hatred and anger into a tiny ball in the pit of my stomach where it thrives off of my body. The maggots have eaten through my skull. They are everywhere now. I have hit the very bottom of the murky waters. I am lost.

But not all hope is out the window, for I am slowly beginning to realize my self worth. Once you hit the bottom you begin to grow bored of the same scenery. The only way to change the setting is to go back up, and that is what I am trying to do.

I still blame myself. I still hate everything that I am, but it is different now. It is gentler. It is better. Things are better. The tiny light at the surface is just a bit brighter, and my decomposed brain has a blossoming of seeds in its wake.

I did not die when I finally swallowed the labelled bottle. If that is not a sign that there is something better ahead, then I do not know what could be.

I am not to blame for the abuse of my captor, and I hope to one day truly believe that. Maybe the maggots in my body will agree.


End file.
